SEOUL—South Korean President Lee Jae-myung called on North Korea Saturday to open talks aimed at formally ending the Korean War, using the country's 81st Liberation Day ceremony at Sejong Center in Seoul to issue his most direct peace overture since taking office in June.
"Let us put down our intentions to threaten each other and begin discussions to end the long-running war as the directly involved parties," Lee said in his address. He added that in the process the two sides "may also discuss effective ways to halt the advancement of the North's nuclear capabilities."
The Korean War, which began with a North Korean attack in 1950 and ended with an armistice in 1953, has never been resolved through a peace treaty. The two Koreas have remained technically at war for more than 70 years. Lee said he intended to replace what he called the "unstable armistice system" with a peace regime.
Lee framed the proposal in terms of mutual restraint, saying the two Koreas should respect each other and halt unnecessary confrontations, starting by "reducing hostility in the perceptions, norms and systems." He said he hoped the two sides would "sit face-to-face for peaceful coexistence and mutual growth."
The president also outlined what he called a "multilayered security system" to control tensions and prevent crises on the peninsula, pledging to take preemptive and consistent measures for peace in step with the security situation. "By inducing a positive response from the North, I will create a stable Korean Peninsula," he said.
The overture comes despite Pyongyang's consistent silence toward Seoul. North Korea has not responded to a series of conciliatory gestures from the Lee government since Lee assumed office. At last year's Liberation Day ceremony, Lee pledged to respect North Korea's current system, ruled out unification by absorption and committed to no hostile acts toward the North. That speech, too, drew no public response from Pyongyang.
The Lee administration has said it will pursue dialogue with North Korea regardless of Pyongyang's receptiveness, framing persistent engagement as a condition of peaceful coexistence with the regime. Saturday's speech reinforced that posture—Lee said he would "turn the energy of hostility and confrontation into momentum for peaceful coexistence and mutual growth."
Lee also argued that stability on the Korean Peninsula would carry regional consequences, saying peace there could promote stability and cooperation in Northeast Asia and contribute to "a world without nuclear weapons."
On relations with Japan, Lee pointed to active shuttle diplomacy between Seoul and Tokyo over the past year as a tangible result of his administration's approach. He said the engagement had strengthened trust and expanded cooperation in supply chains, energy and advanced technologies. "Going forward, our government will expand the scope of cooperation with Japan for mutual interests and address shared challenges by mustering wisdom," Lee said.
Liberation Day—known in Korean as Gwangbokjeol—marks Korea's liberation from Japanese colonial rule, which lasted from 1910 to 1945. The holiday carries particular symbolic weight for inter-Korean overtures, as it represents a shared historical rupture that preceded the peninsula's division. Lee's choice of the occasion for a peace proposal follows an established South Korean presidential tradition of using the ceremony to set the tone for North Korea policy.
The diplomatic backdrop complicates any near-term prospect of talks. North Korea has deepened military and economic ties with Russia since Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and Pyongyang has declared its nuclear status "irreversible" in its constitution. Those steps have narrowed the diplomatic space that earlier engagement efforts—including the 2018 inter-Korean summits between then-President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un—briefly opened.
Seoul has not announced any specific diplomatic channel or timeline for the proposed talks. Lee did not name a negotiating format or preconditions, leaving the proposal at the level of a public appeal rather than a formal diplomatic initiative.
